


you get what you get and you don't get upset

by lesbrarian



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: All the times Emma never got what she wanted (until she did), Implied Evil Queen | Regina Mills/Emma Swan, Pre-Evil Queen | Regina Mills/Emma Swan, Young Emma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-05
Updated: 2014-12-05
Packaged: 2018-02-28 07:07:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,049
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2723246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lesbrarian/pseuds/lesbrarian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"The problem was, it seemed like Emma Swan never actually got anything worth getting anyway."</p>
            </blockquote>





	you get what you get and you don't get upset

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place all over Emma's life, but I suppose Emma's "current" time and place is right at the beginning of season 4.

“You get what you get and you don’t get upset.”

The problem was, it seemed like Emma Swan never actually got anything worth getting anyway.

She first heard that phrase at the daycare center one of her foster families had sent her to. She had been four years old, in the second family after being put back into the system by the Swans, and her newest foster parents cared only just enough to place her in the first daycare center they could find. The days there were long, so when the girl next to her at the snack table had gotten the last cupcake with blue icing while Emma was stuck with purple, her lower lip had trembled, and she had felt the tears start to come. But then her teacher had given her a stern look, and uttered the phrase that Emma would come to know all too well, hearing it from many different people in the years to come.

 

“You get what you get and you don’t get upset.”

When she was fourteen, there were days when the only way she could eat involved making herself as invisible as she could possibly be. The only way food would ever pass her lips would be after a trip to the local Sav Mor in her biggest (her only) winter jacket, backpack slung over one shoulder (because even if she had to steal poptarts to quell the gnawing in her stomach, she sure as shit was still going to look cool, and no one over the age of eight wore their backpacks over both shoulders). But there was one time where she didn’t have her jacket, because it was still only fall, and even in Minnesota, she had already learned to suck it up when it came to the cold. And so the poptart box didn’t really fit under her bomber jacket, which meant that even “you get what you get” was going to result, once again, in that “what” being “nothing.” At least, until Lily stepped in and offered her a credit card, “friends forever, no matter what,” and a picnic in the park. But even that, even the taste of friendship wasn’t something Emma was allowed to have, not really. Because Lily actually _had_ a family, after all. And Emma wasn’t about to stick around and wait to see what happened.

  

“You get what you get and you don’t get upset.”

Emma figured it was pretty cruel of her brain for that phrase to be the first thing running through her mind when she stood there _without Neal_ , waiting for her verdict. Because of course. Of _course_ Emma Swan would be offered something that tasted like freedom, like Florida and young love and a future with _someone_ on her team, for once. And of _course_ the universe would take it away, taunting her in the words of her daycare teacher. Because at just-turned-eighteen, being sentenced to a stint in jail in place of the guy who’d actually orchestrated the whole damn thing felt a lot like the twisted, grown up version of that purple cupcake. Except instead of the wrong color frosting, she was stuck in a hideous orange jumpsuit, with Neal’s goddamn _baby_ on the way, and nothing waiting for her on the outside except a beat up, garishly yellow Volkswagen bug. She didn’t even _like_ yellow.

 

“You get what you get and you don’t get upset.”

When Henry first tried to tell her about The Curse, going into hyperdrive about evil queens and maidens fair and white knights and, god, _saviors_ , she could only think of the curse she’d already known her whole life. Because was there really a curse actually worse than “You get what you get and you don’t get upset?” Whatever Henry thought Regina Mills had done seemed fantastical to someone who had seemingly already lived a lifetime of a curse, the words uttered by a woman who was probably underpaid and unprepared to work with a classroom full of rowdy preschoolers.

 

“You get what you get and you don’t get upset.”

Emma never wanted to be anyone’s savior, let alone the savior of an entire town full of fairytale characters. Sure, being a bail bondsperson may not have been the most glamorous of jobs, but she’d gotten by. Hell, even being Sheriff in the insanity she’d come to know as Storybrooke, Maine, had been easy peasy compared to what everyone was constantly expecting of her. There was an entire month where the days she wished she could just _run_ , just leave it all behind, seemed less like giving up, and more like trying to reclaim something familiar in her life, something that was hers by choice. It felt like less of a burden than getting a title she’d been told was hers.

 

“You get what you get and you don’t get upset.”

But there was one time where that resigned feeling that usually accompanied that internal phrase failed to take hold. One time when it felt like she’d actually gotten something better than everyone else, because what she was being offered was something she could never have let herself dream of being allowed to have.

A life where she had never given him up.

A life where staying with her _had_ been his best chance.

A life where she had someone to love unconditionally, who would love her back just as much.

A gift from a strong, brave, beautiful, decidedly _not_ evil woman who had the most to lose by giving it to her, and still did it anyway.

When Regina Mills stood at the town line, dark clouds roiling behind her, and gave her Henry and a lifetime of memories, Emma finally felt like the girl who’d gotten the blue frosted cupcake. The girl who’d been given something precious, something she could smile about. Something she didn’t have to settle for, because she’d gotten something that she had _wanted_ so desperately, she had never dared to believe she would actually get it.

 

Later, in the Storybrooke where Zelena was gone and Marian wasn’t dead anymore, Emma couldn’t help but think that somehow, it was now Regina who was doomed to “get what you get and don’t get upset.”

 

And that was a curse that Emma would never wish on anyone.


End file.
